The Effects of Ryan’s Medicare and Medicaid Plan

Wendell Potter, senior analyst for the Center for Public Integrity and former head of public relations at CIGNA, joined Eliot Spitzer to analyze Paul Ryan’s plan to restructure Medicare and to put states in charge of Medicaid.

“You almost would be taking us back to the days before we had Medicare to start with,” Potter says of Ryan’s plan to replace Medicare benefits with vouchers that are pegged to the rate of inflation. “Over the past 10 years, health insurance premiums for people in the private insurance market have increased 113 percent — this is by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which tracks this. And that’s far and away more than inflation.”

Watch the interview to hear what this former health insurance company executive has to say about Ryan’s (and now Romney’s) health care plan.